Audi 2007 Annual Report Download - page 71

lying carpets, noise nullifiers, goblin foilers and
firefly catchers? All perfectly feasible, at least if
you are Gyro Gearloose. After all, the dauntless
tinkerer from Ducksburg also came up with “black light,”
which creates darkness in broad daylight. Another innova-
tion of his were “super worms” for more effective fishing,
intelligence waves and an apparatus that allowed dogs to
speak. “I’ll invent anything!” is his motto.
Gyro Gearloose is the original engineering genius, but
he’s also famously out of this world. Another such example
is Professor Calculus, the highly intelligent, hard-of-hear-
ing inventor from the Tintin comics, who can also appear
strangely out of place in the real world. When Gyro Gear-
loose is short of ideas, he hits himself on the head with a
wooden hammer until inspiration dawns upon him.
Cederic Schäfer from Aachen does not have a yellow beak,
though the 12-year-old is fascinated by the technical talent
of the Ducksburg genius. Cederic reads Mickey Mouse
books, but also tomes on physics and Albert Einstein. In
his free time, he constructs machines, cars and robots from
building blocks. At school, he is part of a project in which
children build robots cooperatively, which then enter into
competitions against other robots. And it dawned on
Cederic very early on, without the use of a wooden ham-
mer, that he liked solving technical problems. And that’s
one of the best qualities for later going on to become
an engineer.
Until he does, perhaps MacGyver can continue to feed his
imagination. This supercool action hero is probably the
only special agent who would rather wield his technical
skills and knowledge acquired from his studies than a
weapon. In the American TV show of the same name,
MacGyver shows children (and adults) that science can be
fun. While many of his classmates aspire to becoming pop
stars or professional sportsmen, Cederic’s vision of his fu-
ture career involves “something to do with technology and
computers.”
More and more young people are beginning to think the
same way. In Germany, engineers are ranked as one of the
top five most respectable professions, far ahead of journal-
ists or politicians. Doctors may remain in first place, but
teachers, architects and lawyers are only just ahead of
engineers these days. The reasons for engineering’s high
esteem, and this is shown time and again in surveys, are the
multitude of challenging tasks, engineers’ increasing im-
portance for industry, and their excellent prospects. Engi-
neers themselves also describe their jobs as being creative
and full of variety. Certainly, not all engineers become
famous, but the “Q”s of today are more in demand than
ever. Q, as any high-tech buff will tell you, is the pseudo-
nym of Major Geoffrey Boothroyd, who devises spy equip-
ment and hi-tech toys for James Bond at the top secret
R&D department of the British secret service MI6. What
would Bond do without Q?
Today, an engineer will often work on interdisciplinary
projects, regularly travel abroad and ideally speak several
foreign languages. One example is Petra Kim-Reschke,
head of Audi’s dual-clutch transmission mechanical testing
department in Ingolstadt. She has a degree in engineering
and used to work for an Asian car manufacturer. She speaks
Inquiring minds
Many children and youngsters dream of becoming engineers.
Hardly surprising, keen as they are to ask questions, investigate
and build things. In addition, their imagination is stirred by
hi-tech heroes from comic books, movies and television.
COPY Titus Arnu PHOTOGRAPHY Stefan Pielow
F
“Technology fascinates me.
I used to make films with my toys,
now I build robots.”
Cederic Schäfer, 12-year-old schoolboy